Acquired Taste
by RoxieFlash
Summary: Amy Pond is only just getting used to Rose Tyler.


Amy Pond is only just getting used to Rose Tyler.

Scratch that. She's -almost- used to Rose Tyler. The way she's fallen asleep at the kitchen table, peroxide-blonde hair with almost an inch of dark root flopping across her face, Amy can't quite stop the kernel of resentment that curls in her stomach, followed almost instantly by a flush of shame.

It's been almost a month since Rose stumbled, broken and bloody, onto the TARDIS. She'd held herself up, grasping the railing on shaking arms long enough for the Doctor to let the sonic screwdriver clatter to the grating in his rush to gather her up, and since then, Amy and Rory have been waiting. Waiting for Rose to heal, waiting for the Doctor to speak (oh, the quiet has been deafening), waiting for an explanation.

Rose stirs, mumbling slightly in her sleep and brow knitting as though she's having some sort of nightmare. She's been up and about more lately, but never for too long and never without falling asleep in some of the oddest places. The jump seat, the library window, and once, on the Doctor's shoulders. She's just recently fallen asleep across the table from Amy during tea.

Amy reaches forward, thinking that maybe she should wake the other girl up, when they Doctor bounds through the kitchen doors bearing two servings of hot chips, wrapped in newspaper. He looks only slightly disappointed to find Rose asleep, depositing the chips on the table and sliding in beside her.

Rose, as if sensing warmth, or just sensing the Doctor, curls sleepily into his side, but does not wake. After a few minutes of poking at her nose with a chip doused in vinegar, the Doctor sighs, pops the chip in his mouth, and sits back in the kitchen booth looking ridiculously content.

"Doctor," Amy says, bumping his knee with hers. "Who -is- she?"

It takes him a moment to respond. It's a look Amy knows well - words bubbling up inside his throat, fighting their way for dominance on their way out of his mouth, sometimes so fast he trips on them. It's a different look than his searching-for-words-because-there-are-none look.

"She's the last face I saw before I saw yours," he says finally. "Someone I said goodbye to because I thought our hellos were all used up."

It's amazing, all the times he's swept her into a hug, all the times she's seen him dance suggestively around River, and the way his finger trails up Rose Tyler's arm is the most intimate gesture Amy's ever seen. And that, she supposes, is a bit of reason for the resentment, even though he's happy, more blindingly happy than she's ever seen him, he isn't that happy at her, or at River, or at anyone she expected. It doesn't fit at all into the perfect picture of the Raggedy Doctor she's had since she was a little girl.

"And the chips?" She snatches one, pops it in her mouth.

"The chips," he says, smile like the sun rising, like remembering. "On our first date, we had chips."

It isn't like she didn't know, but that does it. She's perfectly human, Rose Tyler - Amy has heard her snoring, seen her drool on a formica countertop - but for some reason, the Doctor is mad in love with her. There's brilliant, blazing quality about him now, something that reminds her of Rory.

"Oh, is that what you do, Raggedy Man? Zip around the universe and take pretty girls for chips?"

"She took me, actually."

She's always known the Doctor had hundreds of years of stories, before her. Other faces, other people he'd loved, and lost. But this - seeing him gather a piece of his past to his chest like a treasure - only makes it real.

"Will you tell me? Some day?"

He doesn't answer. After a beat, he carefully disentangles Rose from his chest, placing a kiss on her forehead and getting up to rummage around in the fridge. He comes back a few moments with two bottles of some unidentifiable fizzy drink, and sealed plastic container.

"I've got just the thing, Amelia Pond," he pops the lid on the plastic container. For a moment Amy doesn't get the joke, until he takes a chip, dips it in the custard, and eats it whole. Beaming at him, Amy does the same. It's horrible and she nearly gags first on the custard-covered chip and then the banana-flavored soda he's brought them, but Amy Pond is nothing if not up for a challenge.

In a few moments they're giggling like children, and, Amy thinks as she eats another chip, this could become an acquired taste.

"Amelia," he says after a moment, wearing that face he always wears when he's about to begin a very long story. "Have I ever told you that Rory isn't the first friend of mine who was turned into plastic?"


End file.
